by Duncan Lay
“They will be asleep and unaware. And we have you,” Gallagher said.
That was all very flattering but it did not stop the nerves in her stomach as they crept forwards that night.
Gallagher had sailed their little ship into the bay with his customary skill, bringing it alongside a wide jetty. Obviously none of them had been to the Duke’s summerhouse, but they had heard of it, a cool escape from the stench of Lunster in the height of summer. But what was happening there now was a bigger mystery.
The jetty was big enough to allow the biggest of ships to berth in safety. But, apart from their own vessel, the only other boat tied up was a rickety old fishing sloop.
There were no sentries and all eight of them slipped up to the house silently. Mika had been left tied securely to the mast – Gallagher had been more than thorough because the thief looked like he was covered in rope. Yet there was still enough left for each man to be wearing a coil around their waists.
The heavy wooden door was locked and barred and the time it would take to batter it down would give those inside more than enough notice to grab weapons and give them a rude welcome. But with Rosaleen guiding them they were able to move around the side to where a window had been left unlocked. It was not visible from the front, being hidden by a screen of bushes, but she led them right to it.
“This will bring us into the kitchen. From there seem to be six men sleeping in a large room and a seventh in a smaller room,” she said.
“Me first, the Sister second-last. Edan, you’re the smallest, so you come last,” Gallagher ordered in a whisper. “You six take the ones in the room, we’ll take the man alone.”
Three of them lifted Gallagher up and helped him ease through the window. Rosaleen could feel her heart hammering as he vanished inside and she had to remind herself to trust in the knowledge that Aroaril was giving her. The men inside were asleep and, until they awoke, Gallagher would be safe.
With men on the outside and inside, it was much easier to get through the window. When it was her turn, she clambered onto the back of Edan and strong hands lifted her up. She got one knee onto the windowsill and then overbalanced. But Gallagher was there and rather than falling heavily, she landed in his arms.
For a moment she enjoyed the sensation as they were locked together. Then he released her and, after an extra heartbeat or two, she stepped away. Behind them, Edan was dragged in through the window and they could all look around the kitchen, lit by the embers of the dying fire. It was huge, with enough room for an army of cooks.
Rosaleen led the way forward. Each man had a hand on another’s shoulder so they formed one long chain. One turn of the corridor away from the kitchen and the place was in darkness, only a hint of moonlight. But Rosaleen, guided by a higher power, led them through a series of large rooms to the barrack room, where they could all hear the snores of sleeping men. A fire was dying down to embers, one last log glowing to show the carved wooden beds.
“Knock them out and tie them up. If any wake and give you trouble, use your knives. No hesitation,” Gallagher ordered.
They looked nervous but determined and Rosaleen left them to it as she and Gallagher hurried down the corridor to a much larger room, where one man snored under heavy blankets in a huge four-poster bed.
“Do you think this is the Duke? Maybe he faked his own death,” Gallagher murmured into her ear.
Rosaleen enjoyed the sensation of his lips brushing her ear and his warm breath on her neck for a moment before replying. It seemed almost perverse that she could think of such things at a time like this but every nerve was on edge, every breath was crisp and clear and her senses were heightened, both by the danger and the magical help she was getting. She had never felt more alive. “This is not the Duke. It is the man in Mika's memory. And he has all the answers.”
The man snuffled in his sleep and turned over. Instantly Gallagher pounced on him.
“What—?” the man gasped as the covers were dragged back but he said nothing else as he felt the prick of Gallagher’s knife.
“Follow us,” Gallagher ordered.
Rosaleen hung back as Gallagher marched the man back down the corridor and into the guard room, where the villagers were lashing up the last of the other men. All six were alive but only two were conscious, the others sporting blossoming bruises on their heads.
“Poke up the fire and let’s see what is going on,” Gallagher ordered.
Their prisoner was made to sit on the bed nearest to the fire, revealing him to be a young, fit man with an arrogant face and a bandaged arm. Gallagher stepped back a pace, taking the knife away from his throat.
“Start talking,” he ordered.
“You don’t know what you have done. You have doomed yourselves,” the man told them angrily. “Do you know who owns this house?”
“The Duke of Lunster,” Rosaleen said, stepping into the light so he could see she was wearing the robes of Aroaril. “But you are not him, so why are you sleeping in his bed? Who are you? What do you know of Hagen’s death? Why did you have a watch on his house – a watch that tried to kill us when we came asking questions.”
The man clamped his mouth shut so Rosaleen stepped forward and reached out for his head.
“Leave me alone!” the man cried, raising his hands.
Next moment Gallagher was there and the knife was back at the man’s throat.
“Go on, kill me. I will never talk,” the man said defiantly.
Rosaleen stepped around to the side of him and grasped his head. “You don’t have to,” she told him.
She closed her eyes and plunged into his memories. Unlike Mika, this man tried to fight her but his mind was weak and malleable and easy to read.
Rosaleen’s eyes snapped open. “We have to get him back to Berry and Fallon. Now!” she said, urgency making her voice crack.
“Why? What is it?” Gallagher asked.
“I know what happened to the Duke of Lunster and why that ship sailed into Baltimore. Our friends are in terrible danger. We have to tell them before it is too late.”
CHAPTER 43
“What are we going to do when we get home?” Bridgit asked.
Nola looked at her quizzically. “Well, I want a big plate of stew for starters. Maybe some kippers as well.”
“Lamb chops and mash for me. Three plates of it,” Riona said. “I can almost taste it now.”
Bridgit shook her head. The last of the wounded men had slipped away, his body carefully sent overboard accompanied by the tears of his friends and family. She needed something to take her mind off that, and whether she could have done more to save him, and the others. “Well, obviously we are going to eat until our stomachs burst after this voyage is over but what happens after that?”
“Well, I can guess what Brendan has in mind but I’ll want a nice rest first,” Nola said with a smile.
Bridgit sighed. “But how do we stop the Kottermanis? They will be right behind us with an army.”
“Whist, woman!” Riona snorted. “That will be none of our business. That’s up to the King and the nobles. We have done more than enough.”
“But we know more about the Kottermanis than anyone and we have a duty to keep protecting these people, especially the children.”
“You are thinking too much,” Nola advised. “We are still in the middle of the ocean, with dwindling food and a pack of fishermen who seem unable to land more than one fish a day.”
Bridgit smiled dutifully but it seemed that, as they ate less, she thought more. It was as if the last of the old Bridgit was being emptied out and new ideas were coming in to replace that. She had never wanted the responsibility for these people but since it had been forced on her, she could not walk away from it.
“Let’s get home first and then worry about it,” Riona said, as if reading her thoughts.
*
Fallon held the knife to Orhan’s face, his eyes wild.
“You won’t touch my son,” Kemal said confidently.
“I’ll make him bleed!” Fallon screamed.
“Look over there,” Kemal said persuasively.
The Gaelishman glanced behind him and Kemal acted. Since they had crushed his toes, they had not bothered to tie up his leg and now, ignoring the pain, he raised his foot and smashed his heel into Fallon’s face. His nose broke and he fell backwards, losing his grip on both Orhan and the knife. Kemal lifted his chair and bounced forwards, slamming it down across Fallon’s throat, pinning the Gaelishman there.
“Back, or I crush his throat!” he snarled, making the other foul Gaelish stop their advance.
Orhan seized the knife and quickly cut the ropes holding Kemal to the chair, so he could rise. With one last heave of the chair, he finished off Fallon and then advanced on the other Gaelish.
“Let my wife and son go, or I shall send your souls to Zorva,” he promised them.
The Gaelish looked at the dead Fallon and then turned and ran.
Kemal embraced his family, as Feray kissed him passionately.
“You are the greatest man I know,” she said, her hand slipping down his body.
Then the dead Fallon coughed and spoke in Kottermani: “High one, we have sighted Gaelland.”
Kemal opened his eyes and groaned. Each night he defeated Fallon in some other way. And each morning he woke to the realization it was only a dream and he had lost. His family despised him for not saving them and he still could not find the missing slaves.
He looked down. At least his body had not disgraced him this time. “Time is ticking away,” Kemal muttered to himself. They could not have beaten his finest sailors to Gaelland. They must be lost.
“High one?” Gokmen asked from outside the door.
“Signal the fleet. We turn back and search the ocean. Anyone who finds them is to bring them here. If necessary they can be subdued but I will have the skin of any man who kills one of them. Is that clear?”
Gokmen paused. “It is clear, high one. Although the captains will wonder why we do not seek to punish runaway slaves.”
“They can wonder all they like. But they will obey me or the last sight they will see is their own entrails being slowly pulled out of their bodies. We shall meet back here again in a quarter moon.”
“Your will, high one.”
Kemal heard Gokmen stride away and laid back on his bed, rubbing his face. He could not bear falling asleep again. Where were they? He had to find them.
*
Blaine had given up, the knife’s blade long since blunted on the old, hard wood. But Carrick worked on, chipping away small splinters away to expose the locking bar. His fingers were torn and bloody but he sustained himself with visions of the revenge he would exact on Bridgit and her friends once he was out of there and controlling this ship.
“Give me a hand here,” he told his brother.
“It’s useless,” Blaine complained.
Carrick stepped across and kicked his brother’s leg. “Get on your fat feet and help me! We are nearly through!”
Grumbling, Blaine rose and Carrick showed where he had opened the edge of the wall to reveal where the locking bar slid into it from the door.
“If we work together, use our weight,” Carrick suggested.
They hauled at the door, trying to bring it inwards and force the locking bar through what was left of the wall. Once, twice, three times and then on the fourth impact, the locking bar tore free of the wall and the door swung open.
The brothers looked at each other and froze guiltily, expecting someone to come and investigate the noise. But nothing happened. There was always noise on the ship of course, everything from the usual sounds of sailing to screaming children. This morning the ship was crashing through the waves and the noise of that was enough to disguise the screech of tortured wood they’d just created.
“What should we do first?” Carrick asked, picking up the blunted and dented knife. It was not much of a weapon now but better than nothing.
“Food,” Blaine said instantly, his mouth caressing the word.
*
Almost everyone was asleep and the only ones awake were up on deck, so they found it easy enough to slip along the corridors. Neither was normally quiet and graceful but after a quarter moon of eating almost nothing, they found the thought of food was a powerful motivator. They knew where the food store was, having visited it several times in the night before that bitch Bridgit had stopped them.
The store was locked but they merely slipped the tip of the knife between the ill-fitting door and the frame and forced the locking bar up with brute strength, powered by the knowledge of what was inside. Carrick shut the door as Blaine fell onto a pair of fish, cramming the flesh into his mouth.
“Don’t take too long. We have to find Keegan and then take the ship back,” Carrick said.
Blaine turned to him, mouth full of fish and shook his head. “Not until I have had my fill,” he mumbled.
*
Bridgit was dreaming of home when the scream woke her. Woke all of them.
“What is it?”
“What’s happening?”
Children were wailing and adults were either trying to soothe them or get themselves to their feet as the screams continued to echo through the ship before being cut off suddenly. Bridgit was awake and running while most of the others were still rubbing eyes and trying to find their children.
The noise was coming from the direction of the food store and fear gave her extra speed. She rushed up, men and women beginning to follow her, to see one of the women lying sprawled on the floor, blood on the part of her face she could see.
Bridgit shouted in shock and anger – and shouted again when the familiar flabby figure of Blaine emerged from the food store, hand cocked into a fist. She drew her knife and did not even bother about thinking of a warning. She slashed it at his stomach, which looked suspiciously full for someone who had spent the last few days locked in a sail locker eating hardly anything.
But Blaine was not alone. Even as he staggered back down the corridor, trying to avoid her attack, his brother Carrick emerged from the doorway and swung wildly at her arm. His hand connected with hers and the knife was knocked away, to bounce off the wall and land at Blaine’s feet. She turned to try and hit him, only for Carrick to raise a knife to her throat.
“Nobody move or I cut her bogging throat!” he shouted.
Men and women, who had been converging from both directions, stopped, glaring hate at the brothers.
“Now, things are going to change around here,” Blaine said with satisfaction, picking up Bridgit’s knife.
CHAPTER 44
Fallon led the march back into Berry at the head of a wagon train filled with sacks of grain. Their trip around the western counties had proved fruitful indeed and they were cheered loudly as they marched back into the capital. The slaughterhouses were busy again and the markets full, while the millers would also soon be hard at work.
Best of all, any chance of Swane marching towards the capital before winter gripped the country was gone. Many of the nobles had been talking to the disgraced Prince but that was all finished now. Without men, food or anyone capable of sending messages by magic, they could do nothing to help Swane. And, as far as Swane knew, a massive army waited for him. No, they were safe until spring now. Or, rather, he was trapped until spring, when they could go hunting for him.
Fallon walked with his recruits, Dina was riding beside him, graciously acknowledging the grateful crowds. It was slow going through the streets and even worse when they reached the square outside the castle. There they pushed gently through the people, many of whom were waving fresh bread or other food.
“Now all we have to worry about is the Kottermanis. And we have Prince Kemal’s family,” she said. “So there is little to worry about there.”
Fallon shook his head. “I gave my word,” he said softly. “I swore on Kerrin’s life.”
She reached down and tapped him on the shoulder. “Fallon, tru
st me. We make a good team,” she said. “Let me take the responsibility for this decision, to protect Gaelland and keep us free and strong. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices to get what you want.”
He had been growing increasingly comfortable with her but this reminded him unpleasantly of Aidan. He was saved from replying by the roar of the crowd and he let the crush of people naturally carry them apart, until she was a good ten yards behind him and occupied with waving.
Then he saw the crowd parting ahead of him, making way for his friends, not just Brendan but a whole pack of Baltimore villagers, including Gallagher.
Fallon rushed forward to meet them, shoving people aside carelessly in his sudden fear. Had something happened to Kerrin?
“What’s happening?” he demanded.
Brendan jerked his head towards Gallagher. “They got back not six turns of the hourglass ago. And they have big news.”
“What is it? What did you find out?” Fallon demanded.
Gallagher did not reply straight away, while the rest of the villagers kept walking, until they had formed a circle around the front of the column.
“What is going on? Will you stop being so bloody mysterious and talk to me!” Fallon growled.
Gallagher sighed. “I am sorry my friend but we have to be careful. We know what happened to the Duke of Lunster, to your friend Hagen and why the ship ended up in Baltimore.”
“Well, what?”
Gallagher nodded towards the Duchess. “She was behind it.”
Fallon kept from turning around only through an immense effort of will. Instead, he swore furiously. “Just when I was beginning to trust her!” he said. “Aroaril save us. You know she just helped us get enough food to last the city through the winter?”
“Aye. She has been helpful. But she has also been playing her own game. We cannot trust her,” Gallagher said. “Her men tried to kill us in Lunster and we are only alive because of Rosaleen. We have witnesses back in the castle.”
Fallon patted his friend on the shoulder. “Good. We shall get her back quietly and do this without alarming anyone. Whatever else she has done, she is a reassuring presence for the people after we killed Aidan.”
